How I stay organised on my blog

Sometimes, I don’t think that people quite realise (unless you are a blogger as well) how time consuming it is to write and run a blog. You need to find time to come up with and write posts but contrary to popular belief – blogging isn’t just about writing posts. There’s taking pictures. editing those pictures, promoting posts and building up a readership by engaging with your readers and followers, boost and help out other bloggers. You need to know basic code and web design, you need to find time in your schedule to do all of this and also go to work/school for 8 hours a day, keep up what’s left of your social life and keep the house tidy and keep up with the housework, and so on and so on.

So naturally, it can get a little tricky to find time to do it all. For quite a few of us, blogging is a hobby so it can sometimes take a bit of a back seat when things get hectic but I don’t want blogging to be a hobby forever. Recently, I have made a massive effort to post everyday and find new ideas every time I get a spare few minutes to myself, I’ve researched monetizing, going self-hosted (if you have any tips, please let me know!) because my ultimate dream is to be a full time blogger. I’m getting there; don’t get me wrong – I make a little bit on the side with my blog but not enough to keep me going. But for blogging to become that much of a big thing I’m my life, I need to make time for it even when there is no time left over. I’ve spent many a night up at 3am writing blog posts because it’s the only time I could find to do it. However, the best way to make time for my blog is to organise myself properly – to schedule everything I could possibly need to do that day and find gaps where I can fit blog stuff in. Organization is definitely the key, and the secret to organisation? Stationary. Obviously!

PLANNER

I find that I can organize myself a lot better when everything is laid out in front of. I use my phone calender but purely before it sends me reminders for things as they pop up but I much prefer physically writing it out and seeing it in front of me. I absolutely love this planner, I mainly use it from my blog – I write down what posts are due to be published on what day, and then how many blog views I got each day. The only rule that I have for this planner is that nothing work related goes near it – no meetings or lunches are written in, this is a me-time only planner where nice, fun things are documented, not boring old work! I got this planner from next in their new years sales for £3 and I couldn’t live without it.

POCKET NOTEBOOK

This adorable little notebook contains pretty much my whole life blog-wise. It has post ideas noted down, blogs like I absolutely adore and need to check out when I have time, blog to-do lists, picture ideas, etc … This notebook goes with me absolutely everywhere, it’s the perfect size to fit into any of my handbags so it’s very travel friendly. I got this notebook in a tiny little gift shop near my mums house, and I got a pack of two (different designs) for £2 so it was an absolute bargain and I have a second to use when this one gets filled up.

BLOG NOTEBOOK

I’m not really sure why but recently I’ve found that I much prefer to physically write blog posts out in my notebook before I type them out and schedule them. It probably wastes a lot of time but I find it so much more rewarding and feel loads more productive than if I was just type it out. It gives me a chance to iron out any wrinkles and make it, in my eyes, perfect. This gorgeous notebook was bought in Primark (a.k.a my favourite shop ever) and it was a tiny £2 and it is just beautiful. I only ever write rough drafts in this notebook, all my post ideas and such go in the little notebook. I find this especially useful because when the time does appear for me to work on my blog, I don’t have to wast time thinking up post ideas because it’s all ready for me, all I have to do is transfer it from my notebook to my blog and I’m done!

With all of these planners and notebooks I can pretty much plan my entire life and it makes everything so much easier and clearer, and I only spent £7 on all of these so there’s no need for fancy expensive stationary!

Thanks for this, I’m quite unorganised when it comes to blogging! I have a planner and pretty much my whole life goes into it but I like it this way instead of having separate planners which I’ve tried and that didn’t work for me! I have so many notebooks but they don’t get used as much as they should! xo